William Hill - Online casino boosts betting sales

Brief: To increase awareness and users of William Hill's online casino

Target audience: High-income prospects, predominantly male, with a propensity to gamble online

Budget: £1m

Agency: Prego

CHALLENGE

It's been an exciting time for the UK gambling industry. In September, the 2005 Gambling Act came into force, allowing betting and casino firms to advertise more freely.

Gambling firm William Hill had set up an online casino in 2003, recruiting customers from its online sports and telebetting services. These sources, however, were no longer attracting the same number of customers as they had in the past.

To take advantage of the new rules, William Hill wanted to increase awareness of its online casino brand and grow the number of players.

STRATEGY

William Hill, along with agency Prego, devised a campaign using the theme of 'The Online Super Casino'. Lester Fernandes, e-gaming manager at William Hill, said: "We needed a name that described our casino. The term 'Super Casino' had entered the public psyche because of the licences for the large casinos that were to be built in the UK. We wanted to let people know that there was already an online super casino out there from a name they could trust."

Work began with an awareness-raising drive, followed by targeted direct marketing to encourage registrations to the casino.

EXECUTION

Legal constraints prior to 1 September, in particular those banning incentives to gamble, meant previous creatives were simple, with just a URL call to action.

- Outdoor and press

These included responsive 48-sheet posters in major cities and posters in high-traffic train stations. Colour adverts were also placed in broadsheet newspapers, including the Independent and many of the Sunday newspapers.

- Search and online

The William Hill website had been rebuilt and tagged for the campaign in order to be picked up by search engines. Some banner advertising for the Super Casino also ran on sports websites and portals.

- Direct mail and email

"As you couldn't incentivise for money or money's worth under the old rules, we ran with the press and outdoor for as long as we could. Then on 1 September, we sent out direct mail," says Fernandes.

Packs were mailed to new members of the sports and telebetting databases, as well as names on cold lists that had been profiled against existing customers. Lists purchased were based on a propensity to gamble and a high disposable income or factors that showed a strong link with gambling, such as an enjoyment of fine wines and dining, executive travel and jewellery.

More than 200,000 packs were sent out. These were staggered due to data cleaning rules in the new gambling act. "The Act asks us to update any data that we mail every 48 hours. We had to send packs in batches as we could not handle that number of packs in two days," says Fernandes.

Another 200,000 contacts from William Hill's online sports and telebetting channels received an email inviting them to the online casino. Follow up emails were sent to those who had received mailpacks.

RESULTS

Final results are yet to come. However, the number of people who have downloaded the necessary software to run the casino programme has risen 27 per cent, compared with the same period last year. The average age of users recruited through the campaign has also fallen.

Turnover by the online casino is up 17 per cent year-on-year. Fernandes is also expecting to see a seven per cent increase in player numbers as a result of the direct mail packs.

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